Electronic Arts’ bad week

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For Electronic Arts, one of America’s biggest and best-known game publishers, there’s just no telling what any given seven-day period holds. One week you might release Mass Effect 3 to soaring sales and critical acclaim. Then, scarcely a month later, you might find yourself embroiled in dual controversies that would drive any multi-billion-dollar corporation to drink. (If corporations could drink. Which they can’t. You know what I mean.) And this week, one would think EA constantly kept one hand on the bottle.

On Wednesday, the blog Consumerist bestowed upon EA the title of “Worst Company in America 2012.” Consumerist chided EA, which beat out Bank of America to attain the dubious honor, for buying up small, innovative game makers; and its tendency to “nickel and dime consumers to death,” in reference to “numerous accusations that EA and its ilk deliberately hold back game content with the sole intent of charging a fee for it at a later date.”

Then it came to light that EA has been slammed in recent weeks with what GamesIndustry International calls “‘several thousand’ letters and emails protesting the inclusion of same sex or LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) content in its video games, most notably Mass Effect 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic.” The letters apparently allege that EA was “pressured by LGBT groups” to include the content, and could face major boycotts if it’s not removed.

In case you ever forget that entertainment can be deadly serious, remember these events. But where to begin with addressing them? Especially since (gasp) I sympathize with EA on both. Sort of.

Starting with the latter, I think it’s pretty clear that there’s not much — if anything — to be done here. Groups that want to make their feelings known, about this or any other subject at any point along the political spectrum, will, and should be allowed to. If indeed America is still a free country, this inspires a powerful interchange of ideas that will make us all better people and yet still foster an environment in which the right things happen (if not always in the quickest or happiest ways).

But, as with so many cases like this, the, ahem, devil is in the details. I haven’t played enough of Star Wars: The Old Republic to judge it, but I’ve blazed through Mass Effect 3 a few times, and can verify that almost all the “objectionable” content is fairly well buried. Finding a partner of either gender is about as tricky in the game’s world as it is in real life, and it requires a similar investment of time, interest, and effort. A few characters may make passing references to same-gender spouses or attractions, but most of it is incredibly innocent, little more than flavor text. (And it’s worth noting that your character, Commander Shepard, can easily have sex without first getting married if he or she so chooses. I seem to have missed the brouhaha about that.)

If developers like BioWare want to make their games more representative of the world as it currently exists (and, like it or not, that’s what they’re doing), that’s certainly their right — and I’m as glad that they have that as I am the protestors have a right to speak against the results. I would like to point out, however, that there is one spectacularly easy way for parents to address the question of this content in games such as this: Don’t let your children play them. Take responsibility for your own decisions about what is or is not appropriate for your family, but please leave everyone else the freedom to do the same. The market will ultimately decide the outcome, and that’s the way it should be. Now can we please get back to talking about things that actually matter: Like how confusing Mass Effect 3’s ending is, and whether BioWare should be releasing DLC to correct it?

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